Minnesota Scored 29 Straight — Wentz and Jefferson Turned Green Bay’s Opener Upside Down
GOATIFYMinnesota’s season opener looked like it was slipping away before it turned into one of the wildest finishes of Week 1. The Vikings trailed Green Bay 22-10 late in the third quarter, had already lost starting quarterback Kyler Murray to a concussion, and were asking backup Carson Wentz to rescue a divisional game that had tilted heavily toward the Packers.
What followed was a 29-point avalanche. Minnesota scored the final 29 points of the game, Wentz threw three touchdown passes off the bench, Justin Jefferson took over in the biggest moments, and the Vikings walked away with a 39-22 win that looked almost impossible less than a quarter earlier.
Wentz turned an emergency into a comeback
Murray’s exit forced Minnesota to improvise early. Wentz entered a game in which Green Bay had already built momentum, but he gave the Vikings exactly what they needed: calm decisions, quick scoring drives and no giveaways. He finished 12-of-19 for 133 yards and three touchdowns, a compact stat line that understates how sharply the game changed once Minnesota found its rhythm.
The first breakthrough came when Wentz found T.J. Hockenson for a 16-yard touchdown late in the third quarter, cutting the deficit to 22-17. After Green Bay failed on fourth down, Minnesota immediately made the opening count. Aaron Jones Sr. scored from three yards out, then Jefferson hauled in the two-point conversion to put the Vikings ahead 25-22 with 6:37 remaining.
From there, Minnesota’s defense and offense started feeding each other. Andrew Van Ginkel and Blake Cashman combined to strip Jordan Love, the Vikings recovered, and Jordan Mason punched in a one-yard touchdown only moments later. Love’s next possession ended with an interception by James Pierre, giving Wentz another short field. He finished the surge with a nine-yard touchdown to Jefferson.
Jefferson ended the afternoon with eight catches for 92 yards and two touchdowns. His first score, a 39-yarder from Wentz, kept Minnesota within reach before halftime. His second effectively ended the game. For a player who already attracts the defense’s most aggressive coverage, finding two different ways to deliver in a backup-quarterback game was exactly the kind of impact Minnesota needed.
Green Bay’s huge passing day disappeared inside the collapse
The strange part for Green Bay is that Love’s box score looked like the foundation of a win for most of the afternoon. He completed 21 of 42 passes for 387 yards and two touchdowns. Christian Watson produced six catches for 147 yards and caught both scores, including an 81-yard strike that helped the Packers carry a 19-10 lead into halftime.
But the final quarter exposed how quickly yardage can become meaningless when possessions end badly. Green Bay had the turnover on downs that opened the door for Minnesota’s go-ahead drive, then Love lost the fumble that set up Mason’s touchdown, and finally threw the interception that allowed the Vikings to make the score look lopsided.
The sequence was especially costly because Green Bay had controlled so much of the game before it unraveled. Watson’s second touchdown pushed the lead to 22-10, and the Packers appeared positioned to force Minnesota to chase the game with its backup quarterback. Instead, the offense produced nothing after that score while the defense could not get off the field when Wentz found favorable matchups.
For Minnesota, the result is bigger than one comeback. Losing Murray early could have given the rest of the NFC North an immediate opening. Instead, the Vikings showed they could survive a quarterback emergency, lean on Jefferson and Hockenson, generate turnovers at the perfect moments and close a game with 29 unanswered points.
For Green Bay, the opposite lesson arrives quickly. Love and Watson proved the vertical passing game can be explosive, but a divisional road game cannot survive three late possessions that hand momentum and field position to the opponent. A 12-point third-quarter lead became a 17-point loss in barely a quarter of football. That is the kind of Week 1 collapse that can linger unless the response is immediate.
